Hill Gridlock Changes ATA Focus to Regulatory Issues, Graves Says

This story appears in the Feb. 22 print edition of Transport Topics.

A year into the Obama administration, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said the trucking industry’s challenges are primarily regulatory, rather than legislative, because of the gridlock that has enveloped Congress since last year.

“I think a lot of our battles are more in the regulatory arena,” Graves said in an interview with Transport Topics. “At this point, I’d probably rank a favorable resolution of hours of service as a higher priority than reauthorization [of highway-funding legislation], and part of my saying that is that I just don’t think that reauthorization is imminent.”

Graves on Feb. 16 spoke with TT, in advance of ATA’s annual Winter Leadership Meeting in Washington to this week.

When ATA’s leaders came to Washington last year, the feder-ation put on an all-out blitz, meeting with lawmakers and other officials to try to influence what, at the time, appeared to be a tidal wave of sweeping policy changes that have not materialized.

“There was a sense that President Obama had been elected and had just been sworn in and there was a sort of a sense that everything was going to happen in a big hurry. It seemed that you had to get on top of and cover every base as quickly as you could in order to make sure that your view and your perspective was known,” Graves said of the mood of last year’s meeting. “Looking back now, we know that didn’t prove to be the case.”

As a result, he said, while there was “certainly an emphasis” on putting ATA members in touch with their representatives in Congress, the federation “certainly doesn’t have the same sense of urgency in this advocacy element this year, but it is an important part of a successful Winter Leadership Meeting.”

While the focus last year was on Congress, this year, much of ATA’s attention will be on the executive branch and the courts.

“There’s going to be a lot of energy focused on getting the hours-of-service issue resolved,” Graves said. “And on the legal side, we are continuing to press the legal action . . . [in the] L.A. port case, which is critically important to this industry in terms of shaping the future of maintaining rates, routes and services and our flexibility to conduct interstate commerce.”

Those issues have taken precedence, Graves said, because Congress has been unable to make much progress on many issues, including — foremost on trucking’s agenda — reauthorization of the highway funding program.

“If you look back and could have predicted the sort of political gridlock over a method for funding the new reauthorization plan, you’d probably not be surprised that we haven’t gotten it done,” he said, “because the Democrats aren’t about to carry that load all by themselves and the Republicans aren’t about to help them.”

Despite the work of several members of Congress, Graves said there’s been “very, very little progress made,” toward getting a long-term bill completed.

“I don’t think the rank and file, the majority of members, are paying much attention at all to a reauthorization, and part of that is because they continue to extend and . . . throw emergency relief at the Highway Trust Fund with

general-fund dollars, which are deficit dollars. I suppose, as long as you can get away with doing that, you avoid making the really tough decision,” Graves said.

The failure of congressional Republicans and Democrats, as well as the White House, to make progress on several key pieces of legislation has had both positive and negative effects on trucking’s policy priorities, Graves said.

The fact that a reauthorization bill, with a drug-and-alcohol screening database or other trucking-backed safety initiatives included in it, has not been passed has hurt, Graves said, but “on the flip side, am I disappointed that cap-and-trade has been held up? I’m certainly not.”

Currently, he said, there’s little incentive for Republicans to go along with President Obama or congressional Democrats — especially in light of recent Democratic retirements and defeats.

Republicans, Graves said, may see recent political developments as “all the more reason to just keep limiting any policy progress and wait and take their chances after the November elections, which quite candidly look awfully favorable to the Republicans right now.”

“I happen to believe if the elections played out, Republicans would make substantial gains and have an outside shot of gaining control of the U.S. Senate,” Graves said. He added that the possibility of a divided government could be a “very positive development” for both the industry and the country because it would force the two parties to compromise more.

With an eye on regulatory issues, Graves said that Anne Ferro, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, would be speaking to ATA’s board of directors, and ATA members would get briefings from staff members on topics including FMCSA’s new enforcement program, CSA 2010, and environmental rules such as proposed low-carbon fuel standards in California and elsewhere.

ATA’s Winter Leadership Meeting is scheduled for Feb. 21-23.